Whatever your beliefs, to feel that you are one tomato in a big yummy stew can be quite comforting. You’re important to that stew, you make it taste nice. But if you get all wrapped up in being a tomato and wondering what a tomato’s life is all about, or that actually you’d prefer to be a carrot, you waste your time, without realising what you are already, and you miss the bigger picture. Joining with other vegetables in the stew helps to make you feel connected. Sharing our talents creates fantastic things.
Over the last month I have used the theme of positivity within yoga classes.
My final class on this adopted the idea of lifting ourselves out of our negativity by connecting to others and remembering that we are part of a bigger picture. Too much time alone, believing that we are isolated, can lead to that sinking feeling of getting stuck in your own mind. Simple connections with other people remind us of the Buddhist concept that we all share two things as humans – love, and suffering.
Rather than becoming self-obsessed with the immediacy of our own lives we can acknowledge that there is something greater. That knowledge helps to bring a sense of perspective. Rather than feeling small or unimportant, being part of a bigger picture can give us a more positive role. You are a part of something that is greater than your own life. Ultimately you are connected to a broader energy – you are a part of it, and it is a part of you. All of the love and all of the suffering too.
Yoga means to unite. Unity within ourselves of our bodies, minds, breath and energy. Unity of all people, all minds, all preferences, all of our energies, our loves, our suffering.
Half way through writing this blog, the very sad news came through about the Oslo tragedy. I asked myself if it was possible to still write on positivity. And then realised, without doubt, that positivity and compassion and empathy are what is missing from someone’s life for such terrible things to happen. It is detachment from the very concept outlined above that fuels an individual’s belief that we are separate, different, detached.
Don’t just be a tomato.
